The sky’s the limit for The Script ahead of homecoming gig

With sales of 10m records, and a sold-out homecoming gig, The Script really don’t care what the critics say, writes Ed Power.

THE Script’s Danny O’Donoghue was at home watching television when a pounding at the door interrupted his repose. Outside, standing in the rain, was bandmate Mark Sheehan. He had bad news: Danny’s mother had suffered an aneurysm and was not expected to live. The group were in London recording their latest album but all of that was incidental now: O’Donoghue needed to get back to Dublin without delay.

“They’d been trying to call Danny. He’s terrible for not answering his phone,” recalls Sheehan. “So they rang me. I legged it to his place. By the time I got there I’d booked his taxi, his flight to Dublin, everything.”

For several months, O’Donoghue was at his mother’s bedside. Doctors had initially given her mere days to live. However, her condition improved — slowly she recovered. Out of solidarity with his bandmate and friend, Sheehan, meanwhile, was flying back to Dublin three days every week. When not at the hospital, the pair would book time at Sun Studios in Temple Bar. Songwriting was their therapy.

“You wouldn’t chose a situation like that,” says Sheehan. “If I was going to go away somewhere to write maybe you’d pick a luxurious studio in the countryside. I never thought I’d be spending my days hanging around Dublin drinking in Temple Bar. And yet, ultimately, maybe it was the best place to be.”

There was an awful symmetry. During the recording of The Script’s debut LP in 2008, Sheehan’s mother had taken ill suddenly and passed away. Now, in the middle of their latest album, history was repeating in the most terrible way. Rather than despair, however, the group drew strength from the trauma and poured it into the music.

The resulting album, No Sound Without Silence, is likely to divide attention. By certain parameters The Script are the biggest Irish band since U2. However, it would not be true to say they are universally loved: for some, their glossy sound and determination to appeal to as wide an audience as possible are grounds for public flogging.

The band are aware of this and, frankly, it annoys them. Speaking to me two years ago, O’Donoghue was blunt in his opinion of critics. “I was reading a review of our new album in a British newspaper. The journalist gave it two stars. Then I remembered — on our last record she gave us two stars as well. And it sold four million copies. If that’s what two stars means, I’ll take them every time.”

Despite record sales in excess of 10m, The Script are cautious about success. The songwriter and creative force, Sheehan, in particular, is the sort who half suspects the sky might fall in at any moment. Consequently, he isn’t at all the laurel-resting kind: he probably worked harder on the new LP than on the group’s first album. At this stage in your career, you need to put twice as much effort in, he feels. Otherwise your fan-base may feel taken for granted.

“I live in a local terrace house,” he says. “I drink in my local pub. It’s important you don’t lose yourself.”

For a mainstream band, in person The Script are surprisingly straight-talking. Asked about next Saturday’s sold out comeback at Dublin Castle, Sheehan is, to put it mildly, ambivalent. He is concerned performing in a big outdoor venue in Ireland in September is tempting faith. What if the skies open?

“I worry that it will rain,” he says. “Growing up in Dublin, it’s rained all my life. So that’s what I’m always thinking. Really, the venue isn’t the be all and end all. I couldn’t give a shit. I’d play in the street.

“Everyone gets caught up on all the bollocks. Dublin Castle was suggested — nobody has played there for 10 years. My first question was: what’s the sound like? Is it going to be shit, going off the concrete walls?”

The Script have had a proper roller-coaster career. In the late 1990s, O’Donoghue and Sheehan were briefly members of the horror-show boy-band Mytown. They were signed to a multimillion deal in an era when groups such as Westlife and ‘N Sync ruled the world. However, a few months later, boy-bands were over. Before they had even released a note of music, Mytown were on the scrapheap. It was a valuable lesson: never trust what people in the industry tell you. In the end, you have to do it all for yourself.

In their early 20s, O’Donoghue and Sheehan were in danger of becoming yesterday’s men. Believing a change of landscape was in order, they hooked up with drummer Glen Power and moved to America, where they got to know super-producer Pharrell Williams. He invited them to his recording studio at Virginia Beach (the largest city in the state of Virginia).

The Script picked up a great deal from their time with Pharrell. But staying in America was expensive. Soon they were back in Dublin, jamming in a rehearsal studio — a shed really — on St James’ Street, close to where Sheehan had grown up. Signing to Sony Records, in 2008 they played their first show, at Dublin’s tiny Sugar Club. However, their debut album was an immediate hit, its slushy mix of Coldplay and Maroon 5 a natural fit on daytime radio. Three years on, they were performing to 50,000 at the Aviva Stadium and O’Donoghue had second career as judge on The Voice UK on the BBC (he’s since packed it in to focus on the band).

They were certainly not born into a jet-set lifestyle. Of working and lower-middle class Dublin origins, they’ve had to toil hard to get where they are. It was their spit and sawdust background that prompted comedian Brendan O’Carroll to ask The Script to write a song for the recent Mrs Brown movie. Having known O’Carroll before his current success in Britain, Sheehan said yes on the spot, then worried how he was going to live up to his promise.

“I was thinking ‘I’m not sure where The Script can fit into this’. I started with a guitar riff. Once we had that, I began telling a story: me and Danny wrote Hail, Rain or Sunshine. We gave it to Brendan — I swear, I never saw a grown man cry like that.

“He said ‘How did you get so much emotion into a song?’. Well, I was painting a picture of my own experience, of my mother’s experience, of growing up in Dublin.”

* ‘No Sound Without Silence’ is released next Friday. The band play Dublin Castle the following night

HOT ON THE HEELS OF THE SCRIPT: Ireland's next generation

KODALINE: It may seem strange to describe Kodaline as ‘up and comers’, considering they headlined Dublin’s O2 venue in March.

However, there is no question but that the Swords four-piece have bigger plans ahead.

With their debut album, In A Perfect World, they targeted the United States — a market where they have made impressive progress — including appearances on American Idol and Jay Leno’s Tonight Show (shortly before Leno stood aside for Jimmy Fallon).

Expect their second record, which they are currently writing for, to further their dreams of world conquest.

WALKING ON CARS: We do not mean to be cynical in describing Walking On Cars as a synthesis of Kodaline and The Script (with elements of Coldplay for good measure).

Nonetheless, it is the music’s anthemic heft that immediately strikes you and which has no doubt played a part in their securing a deal with Universal.

By the time the A&R men came knocking, Walking On Cars were already going places at a steady clip, and they continue to live in their home town of Dingle. “We have thought about moving to Dublin. Of course, you’ve got to factor in the rent and the general cost of living,” frontman Patrick Sheehy says. “Plus, the view around here, and the peace of mind it brings, are hard to beat.”

HOZIER: At the recent Electric Picnic, Hozier’s mid-afternoon set drew one of the biggest crowd’s of the day. And with good reason: the Wicklow singer has a wonderfully bluesy rasp, more redolent of the Mississippi Delta than over Ireland’s east coast.

With Universal putting lots of marketing muscle behind him he is already making a name overseas. Rock does not lack for star-crossed vocalists who have probably listened to a greater amount of Bon Iver than is strictly wise. In that context, Hozier’s Irishness may make him feel more exotic than his peers. In one recent UK profile, he was described as growing up in a rural neverland far from the conveniences of modern living — surely a bit harsh on his hometown of Bray.

THE STRYPES: Just out of school, Cavan’s The Strypes have become a cause célèbre among music fans old enough to be their grand-parents.

With a sound that draws unashamedly on the British blues revival style of early Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, etc, they combine virtuosic playing and an agreeably moody stage presence (removing their sunglasses just isn’t their thing, by the looks of it).

Their debut album contained several original compositions — though that was hardly necessary. With The Strypes, it’s all about the swagger and the licks — all else is of secondary import.

HUDSON TAYLOR: Until now, sibling duo Hudson Taylor’s claim to our attention has been the fact elder brother Alfie is stepping out with Gabrielle Aplin, the chart topping UK folkie.

Now, however, things are gearing up for the Dubliners — the London Times has championed them as one of the most exciting ‘British’ bands of the hour (cheers) and they by all accounts stormed the recent Reading Festival outside London.

They’re currently working on their debut album — to whet appetites the brothers have put out a teaser single, ‘Chasing Rubies’, and are to tour with Jake Bugg.